SAMFA Workshop Report
by David Farmilo

The first SAMFA Hoof Care Workshop was held on August 23rd and was a resounding success. On a bitterly cold day 35 horse owners, 9 farriers and 5 horses turned up in the quest for further knowledge. This was a great indication of the expectations of horse owners, and has laid the foundation for regular future clinics.

The 5 horses all had mild lameness issues which gave the opportunity for discussion on correct balance, how to decide if a horse should be barefoot or shod, which shoes to use, which nails to use, and the role of the horse owner in hoof care.

Farriers attending were Bill Rose, Paul Scragg, Bevan Roberts, Brenton Matthews, and Ron James plus committee members David Farmilo, Bill Hunt and Lisa Brinkworth. It was great to see some young farriers including Lucas Holland and Steve Schroeder come along and participate in the discussions.

The BBQ lunch coordinated by Bill Hunt gave all attendees a chance to talk among themselves, meet other horse owners, talk to farriers and learn more about hoof care from the material on display.

Bill Rose supplied charts on gait problems and pressure loads which were of great interest to the horse owners as this sort of material is hard to access.

A pinboard of photos of hoof problems and a computer program of the anatomical structure of the hoof created many questions and discussions. Lisa Brinkworth gave an in-depth talk on the treatment of a foundered pony with the aid of lots of good photos.

Bill Hunt set up a pin board promoting the SAMFA Newsletter and raised awareness of what we are trying to achieve. This also resulted in 10 more subscribers to the SAMFA Newsletter.

At the next committee meeting I plan to set up a schedule of workshops for 2009, run every 8 weeks, where anyone can bring along a horse with an ongoing lameness issue. I plan on also scheduling a rotation of farriers to attend these clinics to help with the programme.

The role of these clinics will be to encourage farriers to give more information to horse owners, and to handle speaking in public in a relaxed environment, while putting SAMFA more into the public eye.

There is no place for a blame game at these workshops, and both farriers and horse owners alike will have the opportunity to learn more about hoof care for the good of the horse.



We recieved some excellent feedback!

Read the letter below.